


by your side

by iaintinapatientphase



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-15
Updated: 2015-11-15
Packaged: 2018-05-01 20:01:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5218967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iaintinapatientphase/pseuds/iaintinapatientphase
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"‘Old Mrs. Hamilton…active in body, clear in mind…talks familiarly of Washington, Jefferson, and the fathers. I told her how greatly I was interested..on account of her husband’s connection with the government. “He made your government,“ said she. “He made your bank. I sat up all night to help him do it. Jefferson thought we ought not to have a bank and President Washington thought so. But my husband said, “We must have a Bank.” I sat up all night, copied out his writing, and the next morning he carried it to President Washington and we had a bank."</p>
            </blockquote>





	by your side

**Author's Note:**

> an interlude that unfortunately doesn't fit with the rest of a larger piece i'm writing. i still think it's sweet.
> 
> i'm on [tumblr](http://iaintinapatientphase.tumblr.com/), come say hi.

“Do you realize how stupid you look when you go on TV and talk about things you don’t understand?” Alex yells into the phone.

“Do you realize how stupid you look in that purple tie you wore yesterday?”

“God dammit, Jefferson. Stick to fucking your way through Europe and calling it diplomacy and keep my department out of it.”

“I was simply asked a question about my thoughts on your financial plan, dick,” Jefferson drawls. “Or should I say your plan to assume total control of this nation’s commerce for your own political gain.”

“It really is incredible that a man as objectively intelligent as yourself- don’t be so smug, that’s not a compliment,” he snaps over Jefferson’s laughter, “can be so incredibly dense when it comes to understand basic monetary policy.”

He grabs a notepad and a sharpie and scribbles “BOOK ME ON MEET THE PRESS TMRW AM.” He slams the notepad against window of his office. His secretary is luckily used to such dramatic behavior and immediately nods and gets on the phone.

“Secretary Hamilton,” Jefferson replies with exaggerated formality, “I know you’ve been able to convince yourself that your monarchist fantasies are actually good for the American middle class, but the rest of us aren’t so easily fooled. Your bill is gonna die on the floor next week, thank the Lord in heaven, and our country will be spared another tyranny.”

“It is 20 fucking 15, Mr. Secretary, how long are you going to pretend like the US can keep acting like a bigger version of your pathetic plantation? It’s basic macroeconomics, when you take-”

“Sorry Hamilton, gotta run,” Jefferson interrupts. “See you at Cabinet on Monday, love you!”

Alex watches his screen go dark and hurls the stress ball Angelica gave him for precisely these moments across the room in frustration.

Isabel knocks on the window and holds up her own notepad with “Booked,” neatly written across. He raises a hand and mouths his thanks.

@AlexanderHamilton: I’ll be on @MeetthePress tomorrow AM explaining the financial bill. This bank is not full govt control, no matter what the DemReps say (1/11)

—

He’s been retyping the same line for five minutes when a mug of coffee appears next to his computer. His dear, darling, Eliza. He grabs her wrist and kisses it in thanks.

“How’s it coming?” she asks.

“Slowly,” he sighs. He really should get back to work, but he can’t seem to let go of his wife’s hand. He tugs her closer, leaning back so she can sit on his lap. He immediately feels better, the weight of her soothing the pounding in his ears and the tingling in his skin. She grabs his laptop, settles against his chest, and scrolls through his draft.

He rests his chin on her shoulder and waits she reads through it twice.

“Hmm.”

“Hmm’ indeed,” he agrees. “It’s too long and it’s shit, I know.”

“Everything you write is too long. Nothing you write is shit.”

“It’s not right. It’s not going to work.”

She tilts her head, thinking carefully, and a mess of dark hair falls in his face. “You’re right. It’s too boring for Meet the Press.”

“Boring?” He gives the lock of hair a gentle tug as he tucks it behind her ear. “You’re too sweet, Liza.”

“You know what I mean. Monetary policy is boring. People don’t go to war over interest rates and currency.”

He groans in frustration. “But we already did go to war over monetary policy! Taxation without representation? The tea and stamp acts? This is exactly what we fought for, the notion that the United States, our nation, should be profiting from our work, not a few wealthy assholes an ocean away. The national bank is literally ‘join or die’ in practice! The combined power of the states is incredible, it’s more than the sum of its parts and it is there’s no way we could have won the war as thirteen colonies and there’s no way we can compete in a modern global economy that way either. Look at the thirteenth paragraph, it’s-” He stops abruptly when he realizes that clicking sound isn’t just in his head.

Eliza stops typing and kicks his shin with her heel. “Keep going.”

His heart does that weird tight jumpy thing it does when she does things like alphabetize his bookshelf or attempt to make him Caribbean food. He presses a kiss to the nape of her neck and continues. “It’s there in the thirteenth paragraph. By assuming the debts of the states, the national government’s resources to borrow and bargain internationally are hugely expanded and the states are free to promote development without worrying about foreign creditors breathing down their necks.”

They stay up all night, taking turns typing. Eliza prods him when he gets stuck and slows him down when he spirals off on tangents, like she’s done dozens of times before. He knows he doesn’t deserve her, yet he keeps her awake through the night anyway.

At 5:14 AM he emails the draft to Washington. At 5:15 AM he refreshes his inbox to see if he’s responded yet. Eliza comes back from starting a new pot of coffee and shuts the laptop over his protests. “Alex, he’s not going to read your seven page speech within a minute of his alarm going off. You have to be on tv in three hours. Get in the shower.”

“You’re full of great ideas tonight,” Alex says, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her close. “We should get in the shower.”

Eliza’s dark eyes sparkle with amusement. “Not what I meant, I’ll admit, but-”

He cuts her off with a kiss. She grabs the front of his sweatshirt and draws him backward into the hallway. Alex pulls away to flip on a light - the little whining noise she makes takes his breath away - and drags her down the hall and into their bathroom.

—

He gets dressed while she curls up, sleepy and satisfied (twice) in bed. He flops down next to her and scrolls through his new emails.

WASHINGTON RE: Speech Draft

_Good. We can do this if you nail it on MTP today._

He can’t resist poking her awake to see. “Couldn’t have done it without you.”

She smiles sleepily. “You’re on at 8, right?”

“Yeah, Liza, but you should sleep. You wrote the entire thing and you already know what I look like.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, the kids will be awake in an hour, I’ll be up anyway and I’ll be watching. And you’re not working all day afterwards.”

“Eliza,” he says cajolingly, “if this goes well I’ll have to prepare for the vote on Thursday.”

“No, you promised you wouldn’t work on Saturdays unless in extraordinary circumstances,” she says firmly, but without opening her eyes. “We’ll meet you at your office at noon. We should take them to the art museum or for a hike or something, they’ve been watching too much TV lately.”

They’re still on thin ice after the blow up over the job a few months ago; Eliza is hypersensitive to any sign that he’s spreading himself too thin and Alex is insistent that he needs the time to do the job right. But she is right, as usual. He already knows what he needs to say at cabinet and in front of Congress; she helped him write it last night.

“Okay,” he agrees. “I vote art museum, there’s a new sculpture exhibit and I don’t want them to be people that ‘don’t get’ modern art.”

“Smart,” she yawns. “Go away now, I’m sleeping.”

He laughs and kisses her on the forehead one last time before leaving to catch the train downtown.


End file.
